Preparation and Characterization of Hierarchical Porous Carbon by a Hard-Template

Carbon based adsorbent materials are prepared from sucrose using copper as hard pore template. The adsorbent materials were obtained by heating mixtures of sucrose and copper sulphate at temperatures in the range of 200 to 1000 °C for polymerization and carbonization followed by removal of copper template by leaching with dilute nitric acid. The copper templates were produced by the carbothermal reduction of copper oxide obtained by the decomposition of copper sulphate. The surface area and porosity measurements showed the presence of micropores in the carbon samples. The micropores are generated both by an in situ activation and carbothermal reduction of the copper oxide. The microporous carbon showed good CO2 adsorption characteristics.